WHEN the American soldiers arrived at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978, where Jim Jones, cult leader of the People’s Temple, had ordered the suicide of its followers and 918 victims died, they found a slogan on the site that read, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Those were the words of the existentialist philosopher George Santayana, written more than a hundred years ago but is one of the world’s most popular and recognised aphorisms. The Santayana saying has endured and will never die away, because humans are incapable of learning from the past.
The powerfully impeccable example of the aphorism comes from Afghanistan. Successive empires invaded Afghanistan and had to run out. It was a place where invading armies go directly to the cemetery. The Russians refused to learn from the past, and dived straight into Afghanistan and were driven out.
The Americans had this historical playbook right on its lap, but refused to learn from the past. It went into Afghanistan and was driven out with identical scenes as when the Americans pulled out of Vietnam. The locals were madly scrambling to hold on to moving airplanes that were transporting the departing soldiers.
History is beautifully rich so that every human can learn from the past. But do we want to learn from the mistakes of history? Are humans congenitally trapped in a psychology that prevents them from internalising the mistakes of history so they could be guided into the future?
In Guyana, in 2017, prisoners burned down the entire central prison of the country on Camp Street. A Commission of Inquiry was held. One of the definitive conclusions was that there were too many prisoners on remand. In 2016, the prison housed 979 inmates; this was 448 more numbers than the facility could have taken in.
At the time of writing, I haven’t got the figures of how many prisoners are in the replacement for the Camp Street jail at Lusignan. But because Guyana has not learnt from the past, it must be bulging at the seam. Our magistrates do not know who Santayana was, so they do not understand how the past can guide the future.
I was angry when I read in 2023 that a Linden bank teller was charged with conspiracy to defraud the bank with her friend. No act of violence was committed, but both accused were remanded. A perfect case for granting bail did not happen. Now it is interesting to note that days before the Camp Street inferno, I penned a column warning of impending disaster at the jail.
I am warning this country again that if magistrates, as a matter of policy, refuse to grant bail to people who come in front of them, then you are going to have an overcrowded Lusignan jail. The year 2023 has not been a stellar year for the judiciary. In another column assessing Guyana in 2023, I will look at the overbearing discrepancy in sentencing in the High Court, and I will analyse some judges’ decisions.
I will conclude with an encouraging decision of the Judicial Service Commission. It has decided to publicly advertise for vacancies in three branches in the judiciary – magistrates, High Court judges and Justices in the Court of Appeal. But it should not end there. The society should know who is applying, for one fundamental reason: A judge in Guyana has power comparable to the head of government.
One example should compel you to scrutinise the judges we are getting. Justice Sandil Kissoon, in May last year, ordered the EPA to enforce an unlimited insurance edict to EXXON in case of an oil spill, failure of which the EPA’s permit for EXXON to explore oil in Guyana should be withdrawn. If EXXON had said it cannot guarantee an unlimited sum, then EPA had to adhere to the judge’s decision, and EXXON would have had to leave Guyana.
If, on appeal, the unlimited insurance edict stood, then the most expensive foreign investment in the history of this country would have ended. More importantly, the discovery of the most lucrative foreign export industry in the history of Guyana would have come to an end.
I strongly disagreed with that decision. See my column of Tuesday, August 22, 2023, “The vast power of judges”. The judiciary had entered the realm of policy-making in Guyana, which can lead Guyana into tsunamic waters.
It is for elected ruling parties to decide if they want or do not want foreign investments; not the judiciary. Only the government can change the capital of Guyana; a judge has no power to reverse that. That crucial decision by Justice Kissoon symbolises the unlimited power of the judiciary. So, in 2024, let society know who the applicants are.
